The present invention is generally related to the contact center call routing strategies, more specifically, to contact center call routing by agent attribute such as regional dialect.
A contact center is a group trained agents or technicians that are required to use a telephone and computer to perform their duties. Integration of voice (telephone) and data (PC) create an agents desktop environment. A trend in contact center technology is the growing use of virtual contact centers. This is based on the principle of employing contact center agents for the completion of contact center duties from their home or other remote location such as working in general local office suites also referred to as hotel workers. Virtual contact center agents require reliable network interconnectivity to include a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The contact center provider must provide or publish the services and tools to perform: agent authentication, encryption (secure data during transport), and relevant 3rd party application interfaces to complete the contact center agent duties. Clients employ contact center providers to perform their customer contact duties. Customers are those individuals that use some form of communication (telephone, email, instant message and fax as examples).
To increase call center customer satisfaction, agents must have accurate timely information and must respond quickly. This timely and accurate response by the agent is enabled by continuous flow of information to and from the agent in the form of a script. The script allows the agent to handle objections, answer questions and gather information in an efficient process. The script as a whole is comprised of individual panels which have instructions, information and data queries. This set of panel instructions, information and data queries are referred to as panel logic. The panels themselves are tied together depending upon the questions asked and information required, this panel to panel linkage is referred to as branching logic and can tie a large variety of panels together in a dynamic fashion as the need arises. Panels tied together by branching logic form a script path. The information contained in the scripts requires a constant stream of data to and from the contact center; this data stream needs to have a high quality of service to in order to adequately service the customer.
Observations have been made during the practice of voice talent training to help operators in the south be more articulate during conference calls. The southern accent was inherent to the area was not trained out of the agents and was viewed by many customer's as helpful and friendly. Therefore what is needed is to route customer contact calls based on similar agent attributes. More specifically, what is needed is a method of contact center call routing by agent voice attribute.